It’s easy to think of God only in giant, serious, biblical terms that feel more like an encounter with the giant head of Oz than the warm and real person behind the curtain. But all that changes with Jesus.

God is funny.

Last year my husband and I moved our four small children and a bunch of our stuff into a 30-foot by 6-foot container for a month. Sounds awful, doesn’t it? But when you add a bathroom and wheels and call it an RV, it suddenly becomes part of the American Dream.

By the third day, it was still more of a First World Nightmare. Think Lucille Ball in the Airstream, but add four cranky kids and take away the charming personality.

I flopped on our rubber mattress that night and sighed an exhausted prayer: “God, do you have any idea what it’s like to road-trip with little kids?”

Immediately into my mind came this chuckled response: “Yeah, the Children of Israel.” It made me laugh out loud. Of course! Forty years wandering around in a wilderness (Num. 14:26–35) with a million cranky kids? He had me beat.

The great and powerful

It’s easy to think of God only in giant, serious, biblical terms. He is Just, Faithful, Powerful, Steadfast, Merciful, Omniscient. He is Emmanuel, Yahweh, Jehovah.

These are big, echoing attributes that can feel more like an encounter with the giant head of Oz than the warm and real person behind the curtain.

We think God is distant and elusive and quiet. Is he?

And that’s what it used to be. God was “a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them” (Heb. 12:18–19). People approached him then like Dorothy and her friends: trembling, but desperate to have something only he seemed able to give.

But then Jesus came.

Then God’s Son gave himself up, ripped the curtain open, and welcomed us to sit at a table with the King of the Universe.

God is still scary, but there’s no safer place for his children than with him. He is big and booming and holy and funny and warm and wise and compassionate.

The warm and wonderful

I think sometimes when we imagine getting to know God, what we really mean is getting to know about him. It’s easy to study him from afar the way we might any famous figure. It’s easy to speak formally the way we might to an earthly dignitary, not really expecting a relationship to develop so much as hoping to be changed for the better as we reflect on his greatness and wisdom.

But God invites us to be more than devoted students or adoring fans. He invites us to know him in the same endearing, real, get-in-your-space way that we know our most beloved friends. He is more devoted than the best parent, more faithful than the most loving spouse.

God is still scary, but there’s no safer place for his children than with him.

It’s mind-blowing, but getting to know God is actually easier than getting to know almost anyone else.

We think the opposite is true. We think God is distant and elusive and quiet.

Is he?

Learning to know God

God poured his heart into a book and gave it to us. That’s like finding your crush’s journal or a bundle of letters your dad wrote to you. It doesn’t get more personal.

God doesn’t stop there. He pulls you close, gives you his Spirit, and makes a point of knowing your deepest thoughts and dreams.

He puts your tears in a bottle (Ps. 56:8). Your mom doesn’t even do that.

It’s true that for now, clouded by the sin in our bodies and hearts, “we see in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor. 13:12). But someday, we will see him face to face. And I imagine when we’ve been there ten thousand years we’ll be laughing with him over shared jokes and the awkward early days of our relationship, just as we do now with those who are nearest and dearest to us.

Do you want to get to know God?

Stay tuned for Marsha’s follow-up post in the coming weeks.